Category Archives: Good Eats

While we wait out this deep freeze down South, we’ve been playing with recipes that warm the body and soul. This drink is so nice, we made it thrice. : ) To make your nights and time by the fireplace a little bit warmer, here’s a fine little recipe for Winter Spiced Wine.

Winter Spiced Wine

Gather

4 cups spiced apple cider (we love Trader Joe’s)

1 bottle hearty red wine, like a Cabernet

1/3 cup honey

2 cinnamon sticks

Fresh zest of 1 orange

Fresh-squeezed juice of 1 orange

5-10 whole cloves

Pinch of whole allspice

4-5 star anise/whole

Orange peel for garnish

Make

Combine all of the ingredients in a large saucepan or dutch oven. Bring to a boil, then simmer on low for 10-15 minutes. Pour into warmed mugs and top with orange peel. Drink up, warm up!

Our very first sweet potato planting was a small success! Here’s a shot of the ‘harvest’ — dug up today at the start of Thanksgiving week. We loved seeing all the funny tater shapes emerge with each shovelful of turned dirt. If the family doesn’t choose the classic casserole with marshmallows and all the trimmings, we might just opt for this yummy looking recipe from our talented friend Tara, whose delicious food ideas can be found at TaraTeaspoon.com. Let the Thanksgiving Day cooking commence!

Every fall we stare at the old pear trees out back and make plans. What will we make this year with this sweet country fruit? Who might need extra for canning? In past years, our friend Wendell whipped up an easy Pear Crisp that I love, and two years ago we went around to all our neighbors surprising them with Friendship Pear Muffins. This year we wanted to do an Apple Pear Bread, but after a few tries I was about to give up — that is until last night when, using the very last of the pears, we managed to make a pretty delicious bread…the kind you want to scarf down for breakfast, lunch, snack and dessert. And this time, we think the effort is worth sharing! So here you go, friends: our near Pear-fect Fall Bread (and muffins). 🙂

Few desserts make people as happy as a homemade pie. And in our opinion, this one takes the prize. Perfect for summer. Perfect for hungry guests…and kids. And we know for a fact it makes neighbors smile when you deliver one to their front door. (Right, Megan and Robin?)

I remember it like it was yesterday. An overnight campout during my little sister’s and my first summer at Camp Skyline Ranch in Mentone, Alabama…and my first bite into a S’more. How was it that our parents somehow failed to expose their 6 kids to America’s easiest and absolute best-tasting dessert? What is it about this 3-ingredient campfire treat that makes even the most erudite adults wax nostalgic about childhood summers? In Dan White’s new camping and travel memoir, Under the Stars, the author, who lives in Santa Cruz, California, devotes pages to the S’more and deservedly so. It’s the object of every camper’s affection and out here at our place we serve them up regularly. In fact, one cold evening last winter, Arielle and I got a craving so strong we made some indoors in front of the Buck Stove in the living room. White gives us the origins of the dessert (tracing it back to a 1927 camping manual called Tramping and Trailing with the Girl Scouts) plus much, errr, s’more on his adventures in nature all across America’s great woods and wilderness. Share your own camping memories and photos now on White’s new Facebook fan page, and you can listen to a special July 4th interview — “How America Fell in Love with Camping” — on Wisconsin Public Radio.

July got here just a little too quickly, don’t you think? So damn the calories — let’s celebrate Summer with gobs of gooey S’mores!